Oral History Interview with Carrie Smith, Kate Ellis, Dorothy Campbell Part 1

MARIAN COLETTE: Della was saying that the courting she did was very restricted, that she never really saw that guy outside her mother’s house till they got married, is that true?

KATE ELLIS: That was true with me.

MARIAN COLETTE: What was it like?

KATE ELLIS: A whole bunch of us together, my whole family and my boyfriend would walk to church together.

MARIAN COLETTE: You couldn’t lag behind?

KATE ELLIS: No, you couldn't lag behind, but you could go on a step or two. You just walked along the road together, kind of all together with several children in the family. I had seven brothers and sisters. We all went [with] mommy and daddy. Well, of course we talked, and we were allowed to hold hands, but boys back then sang and played guitars and we had—so we had sessions like then [that] at our house and they[‘d] eat dinner with us.

MARIAN COLETTE: How did girls meet boys then?

KATE ELLIS: At church mostly.

MARIAN COLETTE: Do you agree with that?

KATE ELLIS: Mostly at church, sometimes your brother would bring a boyfriend home with him from school or somewhere from camp or something like that.

MARIAN COLETTE: How did you meet your husband, Dorothy?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: I met my husband at a snake service in Tennessee. They [There] were [was] a whole truck load of us that went down there. He was standing on a bridge, and I said to my Aunt Edna, "right there’s my man if I ever get him.” After a while, we went back by, and he had his arms around another girl that went with us and she said, "there’s your man, if you ever get him.” After a long time, a year or so, why he come [came] back looking for me to find out whatever went with me.

MARIAN COLETTE: How did you meet your husband, Carrie?

CARRIE SMITH: Well, me met at the show house. Me, my mom, and my sister went to

the show and you know how they used to throw popcorn, he throwed [threw] it and hit my mother. He said, “oh, Lord, I hit an old women [woman].”

MARIAN COLETTE: Your mom probably wasn’t that old?

CARRIE SMITH: No, she was up in her fifties.

MARIAN COLETTE: How old was your husband?

CARRIE SMITH: Me and him were the same age when we married.

MARIAN COLETTE: How old was [were] you when you were courting him?

CARRIE SMITH: We was [were] sixteen we got married when we were seventeen. He ask[ed] her, “could I take her home,” she said, "I guess." So, we walked along in front of mom and my sister. We wore our dresses down to our ankles, you never seed [saw] our legs.

MARIAN COLETTE: Was there any certain time--was it like appropriate to get married the next day or was it like expecting to be courting for a while?

CARRIE SMITH: See, me and him went to school together, he was nine and I was nine. They used to live above us, and he had moved away and went to Alabama. He come [came] back when I was sixteen, and we met in the show house.

MARIAN COLETTE: So, you have [had] known him a long time?

CARRIE SMITH: Oh, yeah.

MARIAN COLETTE: Could parents stop you from getting married back then?

CARRIE SMITH: Oh, yeah.

KATE ELLIS: My daddy said that about one guy.

CARRIE SMITH: If you took one home that he didn't approve of, he didn't talk with

him for just a few minutes then your mother would take you to the kitchen and give you a good talking.

MARIAN COLETTE: Well, they pretty well knew the family, so they would know the boy by his family.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Granny Kate was pretty well attached to Finley. He worked for her after he come [came] back looking for where I was at. He worked for her on the farm, and he stayed around the farm and worked for her till she didn’t care if we did get married.

CARRIE SMITH: If you talked to the boy and if you[r] parents approved of him before

he 1ef t the house that evening, they Knew his life history. If he drank, we weren't allowed to talk to him. You had to be a good, outstanding person. Another thing, you never got [to be] alone with them, either you sit on the porch and mommy was sitting in front of us.

KATE ELLIS: If my dad wanted to Know if there was anything inherited into the

Family and if there was a history of mental illness and especially TB or something like that—[he] had to be healthy.

MARIAN COLETTE: Was [Were] there something like people marring to close into the family, like cousins?

CARRIE SMITH: See, this one girl was talking to one and her parents thought they were getting hitched right then, they stopped seeing one another.

KATE ELLIS: Because they thought the babies might come with double genes, like

it was anything went wrong.

MARIAN COLETTE: When somebody decided they were going to get married, where did you go to get married?

KATE ELLIS: My old man and my mother went to the courthouse and got the

License and come [came] back to our house. Henry Bray, why he come [came] over to the

house and married us.

MARIAN COLETTE: So, you didn’t go with the wedding dresses and attendance?

KATE ELLIS: I did, I had a big wedding. I had a gone the wind [“Gone with the Wind”] long, white dress and they all had pink dresses. This was something I wanted, and my parents went along with it. My husband had a new blue suit, he ordered it two or three months before he ask[ed] me. He worked in the coal mines and my dad did too. Back then, you couldn't find a house no where [anywhere], even if you worked in a coal mine, you still couldn't find a house. So, he said, "if you'll get married in two weeks I know [a] man that[‘s] leaving and I'll speak for the house" and I said, “well.” We[‘d] gone together for two years, it was a quick decision for me and every evening he was at my house, so he would stay and stay.

MARIAN COLETTE: So, you had a church wedding?

KATE ELLIS: No, it was at home, but we had the minister, he went and got the minister and the license his ownself [himself] he was responsible for that. My mother cooked the wedding supper and we had everybody in the mining camp. Our lawn was full of people and then we had our house rented and he had the food in the house, and I wrote a store list. I thought if I

wrote a lot, see, we were getting married on Saturday and then it was Sunday, and his family was having a infare dinner on Sunday.

MARIAN COLETTE: What is that?

KATE ELLIS: That’s when the in-laws invited the others, see they were joining two families together and we all went and me and him when we got married, we went over to our own house.

MARIAN COLETTE: Well, when you got married, was it a church wedding?

CARRIE SMITH: No, I was married in the preacher’s house, his wife was a witness for

us.

MARIAN COLETTE: Then did you have a dinner?

CARRIE SMITH: Oh, yeah, just like she was talking there, had a wedding supper and

then the Sunday following, had a both generations meal.

MARIAN COLETTE: Did they play music and stuff?

CARRIE SMITH: Oh yeah, you were serenaded back in those days.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: We slipped off and went home with Herman Canada and Goldie if they had serenated anybody, it would of [have] been mommy.

CARRIE SMITH: We s1ipped off and went to his mother’s house. In that day, that showed the people, they enjoyed seeing you in the neighborhood, that was the main problem of it.

MARIAN COLETTE: They were kind welcoming you, glad you were—you--a new couple to be there? What did it take to set up house, Dorothy?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: I did like my children, I never had anything to start with. The family went in and help[ed] me to go to housekeeping. Me and him both went to work with John Kidd, and we made enough money, what we didn't have we brought [bought]. Stuff didn't cost then like it does now.

MARIAN COLETTE: What Kind of work did you do?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: We done [did] work on the farm. Just whatever he had to do, that’s what we done [did] for a long time and he paid both of us and he paid us good.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: I was just fifteen and he was twenty, there was a whole lot of difference between our age.

MARIAN COLETTE: How old was [were] you?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: I was fifteen, he was nineteen, almost twenty.

MARIAN COLETTE: So then after marriage, then the babies come [came] right away?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: No, I [it] was over a year when I got pregnant. She was born on the 28th of August. I was twenty the 30th day of August.

MARIAN COLETTE: When somebody got pregnant back then, did you know that you were pregnant?

KATE ELLIS: The one thing I did know, I never was sick in my stomach till then. When you'd start to cook, you'd be running out. See, we never had a bathroom in our house.

MARIAN COLETTE: Did women go right to the doctor?

KATE ELLIS: Well, now I had to have a blood test, so I went fairly early, that was the only time I was required to come.

MARIAN COLETTE: So other than that, you never went to the doctor while you were pregnant?

KATE ELLIS: No.

MARIAN COLETTE: Did you, Dorothy?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Yeah, I went to Doctor Sanders while I was pregnant with the first one, but with some of my younger ones--were born at home and my mother was with me.

MARIAN COLETTE: What was your mother’s name?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Angeline Privett (??). I woke up with the baby almost there with a big snow on. See, I [had] been to the doctor, and he was suppose[ed] to come. We had the worst road in Whitley County, and he said, “I run over here and get Reldie Privett.” He went and got her, and she said "now, Albert this baby is going to be here and it's going to be here quick.” Said, “you’ll never have time to get that doctor here.” She said, "get Mary Earls to stay out here with me cause I don't want to be by myself, cause this baby is almost here>" And I had just woke[n] up, I didn't know it.

MARIAN COLETTE: You didn't feel anything?

KATE ELLIS: No, I was asleep, and I didn't know it. It was coming quick cause, I guess I [was] warm. He ran out to get Mary to stay with her. He said, “now what must I do?” and she said, "go way over yonder on Piney Grove Road and get Nathaniel (??)” And I said, “no that’s too far". He said, “well, you’re the boss, what do you want me to do.?” I said, "I want you to go over the hill here and get Angeline.” I said, "she's delivered a lot of babies, and [I’ve] got to have help and I[‘ve] got to have it quick".

MARIAN COLETTE: Was it like in the movies, did they go boil water?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: What, that water boiling is about is to give that man something to

do.

KATE ELLIS: I think probably that they would put the scissors in the boiling water for a few minutes to sterilize them. They[‘ve] got some string that had already been sterile[ized]. I guess that she did everything. Albert did get there with her, and if I hadn't got[ten] some bedding for that to fix my bed with.

MARIAN COLETTE: What did you put, like sheets that you knew were going to get messy?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Well, use to [be] you could buy stuff like a rubber sheet put it down first and get you some old sheets and fold it over top of it.

KATE ELLIS: Sometimes, I would get something old and more material and quilt a

pad to that. I could get old stuff like skirts of dresses where you wore the top out.

MARIAN COLETTE: You fixed your own bed?

KATE ELLIS: Yeah.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Some people that were less fortunate than we was [were], why mommy would fix up at home and take it with her. She knowed [knew] where she was going and she would have that stuff with her. When she had that little baby, there were towels and rags and stuff to take care of it wherever she went.

KATE ELLIS: Generally--spoke to a women [woman] like that did deliver babies like that,

but I hadn't cause I thought I was having the doctor. I never had a baby without a doctor till that one. I had that baby so easy, and she took such good care of me, it was over so quick and easy. Never had to have a shot or anything and got over it so easy I said, “I never will have another doctor.”

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Every baby I had, I wish they would of took [taken] all the midwives even though mommy was one and tie them up somewhere and get rid of them. My last baby was born in the New Grace Hospital in Michigan. The last one was and the rest of them was [were] born in the clinic in Williamsburg.

CARRIE SMITH: I[‘ll] tell you something else, they did too, back in them [those] days that they don't do now. When a baby was born, before people would come in and look at it, they would put conifer (??) all over around the house to make sure no diseases would come in on the baby.

MARIAN COLETTE: What really is asifidity? (??)

CARRIE SMITH: It’s from the pine tree.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: My husband had made some of that stuff. A women [woman] had run in with two little young ones that were stung with yellow jackets till you couldn't even tell who they was [were]. I said, "I ain’t [don’t have] got no [any] conifer, I ain’t [don’t] got [have] nothing [anything].” I never did think about that stuff. I went and got that, and it been there for a long time and that women [woman] washed them [those] young ones down with that and it took it right out.

MARIAN COLETTE: I know when I had my little girl, and she was colicky they said, “get some of that asifidity.”.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: My mom would take a broom straw and put it in that asifidity in a spoon full of milk and give it to them.

KATE ELLIS: They use to do turpentine that way for worms, stick a broom straw in the turpentine bottle, once it would get on a broom straw and swish it around.

MARIAN COLETTE: Do you know members croup?

KATE ELLIS: People called it that the members croup and they said that the

lining in the inside would come lose and fall down in there and they couldn't breathe.

CARRIE SMITH: Lily Mae [was] liked [likely] to [have] of died from it and she turned right black, that’s the way members croup does. You could hear her when you start down the

hallway getting her breath, what we done [did was] we took lard, just plain lard and run [ran] it down her throat to get that phlegm out.

KATE ELLIS: I had a granddaughter and she had something wrong with her and her mother thought she was going to die. When she would get to [start] choking, and my son-in-law, he would take a syringe (??) and get that out of there and she was over two years old before she out growed [grew out of] that.

CARRIE SMITH: I Know yous [you] have done many of times [a time], take a piece of yarn cloth and make a pad to go on their little chests.

KATE ELLIS: They called it flannel and they rendered pole cat grease and I mean that would open you up.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: The school kids come [came] home and they thought it was something I fixed for them to eat, and they eat [ate] it while I was gone.

KATE ELLIS: They come [came] off of the river [from] a working and come [came] home. They rendered one and they had drained the grease off. They had what they wanted, and they would just dig the skillet. They didn’t/t bake it in the oven, they fried it. They done [already] drained the grease off and scooted the meat off and he come [came] in hungry and he thought they fixed something to eat, and he eat [ate] it.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Go down on the creek on the rocks and pick something they called wallink (??)

KATE ELLIS: It looks sort of like a fern.

MARIAN COLETTE: Green?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Yeah, with speckles on it[s] back. Well, two women had babies pretty close together, either in February or March. My husband went down on the creek and he picked them. One of them [those] babies was a healthy-looking baby and one of them was just a little bitty scrawny, yellow looking, He went down on the creek and took the stuff back over there and she said, "I don’t aim for my baby to drink something off of some old weeds with bugs on them.” She told what all was wrong with it, but she had to leave her baby with her sister to go shopping, so when she would leave her baby [with] her sister, she would give it to him. That baby has just cleared up and it looks just as nice as it could look, and it’s done as about as well as the other baby.

MARIAN COLETTE: You mean this is now?

KATE ELLIS: Yeah, all of our grandchildren had it, and she was afraid that we would kill her baby and she said, “they would of [have] killed everyone they got.”

MARIAN COLETTE: But it’s suppose[d] to clear up their skin if they[‘ve] got jaundice and if they’re yellow.

KATE ELLIS: And if they[‘ve] got a fever, it would take it just away. My boys married South Carolina girls and their aunt come [came] up one time to my house. She was telling me if a child had a high fever at night and you couldn’t get your doctor, to slice an onion, put in a pair of socks and put the socks on the baby on the feet and it will cook them [those] onions and their fever will go down.

MARIAN COLETTE: Not cooked onions, but raw onions?

KATE ELLIS: Yeah, but old women used to fry onions and put it [them] on their chest[s] when they were congested.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: I went and run [ran] water in the bathtub and he was just big enough to play in it. I would play in it with him, and I kept him in the bathtub till he got that fever down.

MARIAN COLETTE: Did people read baby books?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Well, my grandmother was wise as if she had a high school or

college education, but she just read an old blue back speller.

MARIAN COLETTE: But she learned from doing that.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: She loved any kind of a book that she could read.

CARRIE SMITH: Now, back in our days of coming up, people weren’t like they are today, if a women [woman] got sick, they all went to see about her the neighbors, all went in to see about her and if a child was born, about every women [woman] in the neighborhood was right there at the door.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Did your mommy stay till the next day to do your washing, Carrie?

KATE ELLIS: I believe that Mary Earl’s daughter did the washing.

MARIAN COLETTE: Did they make you stay in bed then after you had the baby?

KATE ELLIS: They use to make you stay in the bed for nine days.

MARIAN COLETTE: Most of them did stay in bed for nine days. They stayed there all day.

KATE ELLIS: My little daughter with one of my babies set the bed on fire with me. We had a fireplace with a grate, and we had a little bit of fire and she lit a paper and come [came] over and sat down and set the bed on fire.

CARRIE SMITH: I was raised on a stepped stove. You would put your bread through on one side and take it through, the other side had doors on both sides.

KATE ELLIS: I[‘ve] seen them [those] kind of stoves, but we didn't have one.

MARIAN COLETTE: Did you have a coal or wood stove?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Coal and wood both.

KATE ELLIS: Ours had a warming compartment too, to keep the bread warm.

CARRIE SMITH: You would set your lard can up on it to catch your lard in it?

KATE ELLIS: The one that I had just had a little shelf. The ones that my mother had and that my grandmother had, the doors that let down, you would stick your stuff up there to keep [it] warm.

MARIAN COLETTE: Do you know of some [babies] that were born dead or had complications?

KATE ELLIS: I know Dori had one over there that was born dead and they sent after me, and we tried every way in the world to revive that baby, we couldn't.

MARIAN COLETTE: Then what did they do?

KATE ELLIS: I’ve been caught twice were there was a baby born and there was nobody there except me. I got there in time for the baby to be born, then they come [came] in with the doctor. That baby would of [have] chocked to death if I hadn't been there to help it. I didn’t cut the cord, but her mother, a real[ly] old lady, she was there, and she boiled the water. She had the scissors, and she brought the string. She said, "we’re going to have to cut the cord," and I said, "I don’t know how.” She said, "you have to,” She said, "you have to do it.” So, she told me how many minutes it was that you had to do it and she said, "so many inches from the baby,” and you tied it.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: My mother said that, “far and tie it once and then tie it again,

then cut it between.”

KATE ELLIS: She told me to tie it twice she said, "so many inches," I think she

said two inches.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: The first-time mommy said, "about that far, then again about that far to tie in between.”

MARIAN COLETTE: In your recollection, there weren’t a lot of babies that were born

dead. Did they blame the midwife?

KATE ELLIS: No.

MARIAN COLETTE: People Just accepted it?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: People just accepted it that was just the way it was suppose[d] to be.

KATE ELLIS: It was God’s will, according to them. But then later on, when you found out about doctors and things, when out that their blood wasn't compatible, or they had a defect. But, there—sometimes it can happen in the hospital or it can happen at home or anywhere.

MARIAN COLETTE: So then, did they have big funerals for babies?

KATE ELLIS: Well, usually they did have Christian burial, you took them to church.

MARIAN COLETTE: In your time, could you remember if there was in [a] sickness that was affecting a lot of babies?

KATE ELLIS: Spinal meningitis.

MARIAN COLETTE: Around what year?

KATE ELLIS: I can't remember exactly what year.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Ellen had a baby like that, and it lived to be nineteen years old. It

had a little body like a little girl’s body, but it’s had [head] was great, big. I use[d] to help her and when it would yell, it never could speak or nothing [anything]. It was just like a baby crying. I would go back there and talk to it. It would laugh when you would talk to it, but she had to feed it every bite and she can’t hardly go right now, and I think it’s because of that baby.

MARIAN COLETTE: We[‘ve] got pretty many women to talk about nursing and breastfeeding and weaning on that. One area that we didn’t get a whole lot on how did you play with little babies.

CARRIE SMITH: We always made little things for them to play with.

KATE ELLIS: They use[d] to lay the spools and tie strings around them real[ly] good.

You would make a great big circle, kind of like a necklace that they would put over them and play with. The liked books and they like paper, they tried to rattle that paper.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: I had an open fireplace, had one that would cram every fire coal and he would cram them up his nose, I was gone to the doctor the biggest part of the time with him to get that out of his nose. What, he got a pencil eraser up his nose.

MARIAN COLETTE: He just had that bad habit?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Yeah.

KATE ELLIS: Now, I’ve known of them putting beans up their nose and you can hardly get them out at all. Put a little pepper on it and they will sneeze, and it will come right out. There was a lady that I boarded with, out at Brushy Knob. I taught out there. she said she was making Kraut and chopping up and he got some Kraut and packed his whole nose with Kraut. She had to go out of there, had to come out of Brushy Knob, way down to the river and come plum out of there and it was 20 miles to Cumberland. She said she he was scared literally to death.

MARIAN COLETTE: Well, we had a couple ladies [that] said that they lost the baby trying to get it to the doctor.

CARRIE SMITH: I [have] seen one lost and it was four years old. You know, you buy them

peppermint candy, them [those] little small ones. That feller went and brought [bought] some and that little feller sucked one down his neck and before they could get it to the doctor, it died. There was a man and held it up by its heels and hit it in the back trying to get it out.

MARIAN COLETTE: What was a typical workday for you, [what] was [it] like when you had small kids?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Get up at 4:00 in the morning. Get the old man gone [going] to work. The next thing you did was get the kids ready to go to school and bought [by] that time, my house was tore [torn] up and you didn't know which end to start at. But you had to start somewhere, and you would go grabbing up the clothes, then you had a big washing to do.

KATE ELLIS: What they pulled off, you usually washed.

CARRIE SMITH: Buddy, you didn't have them [those] washing machines to washing on them, you had a rub board.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: A tub, a board and a rinse tub, that’s what I had at first for years

and years.

CARRIE SMITH: The first washing machine I [have] ever seen in my life, everybody went

crazy over it. The first one I ever seen [saw] was a motor and everybody went crazy over it, because it was saving their hands. The next one [that I] seen saw was a washing machine and it had a ringer that you had to turn yourself.

MARIAN COLETTE: Did you ever want to sit down and say, “forget this work?”

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: No, they were more satisfied in those days than they are today.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Now, there was an old lady and she kept coming back to me all the time. She would always say, “don’t give up, cause one of these days, them [those] young ones will be grown [up and they will be gone and then you won’t know what to do with yourself. You won’t have all this to do. I said, “I’m a telling you something,” I said "when my young uns [ones] get gone [leave], I’m promising you, them, and the good Lord that I'm going to go to bed when I take a notion and I’m going to get up when I take a notion.” Ever since my babies [have] been gone, I go to bed at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, but sometimes I sleep late, but I've never slept over 11:00.

MARIAN COLETTE: Did women ever get depressed?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Yeah, they got tired of all of that, didn't they, Kate?

MARIAN COLETTE: What did they do, just sit down and cry?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: I really don’t know, because I really had a good husband, he was

always making me something all the time and he was always bringing something home. He brought me a washing machine one time; it was the first one I ever got. He brought it from Michigan and that tickled me to death.

KATE ELLIS: Why I didn't have nothing [anything] but linoleum on the floor when we first

got married and we got electricity in the house out on the farm.

CARRIE SMITH: In our days, you[‘d] seen egg beaters but back in them [those] days, you had the ones that you crank.

MARIAN COLETTE: Well, what did you do for fun?

CARRIE SMITH: Well, there was [were] different hobbies for women in them days.

KATE ELLIS: Like cane strippings. You would have a ball at a cane stripping. They would have it at night with a couple of big nights all over the place and build a bonfire and we quit for a little while and serve hot chocolate and we would roast marshmallows and we had several kinds of cakes baked upped. Then we would quilt. You know, we had a lot of

things that we done [did]. We would go to pea shellings.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Granny Kate took me and Finely to a pea shelling when we were a courting and that old man sang black clouds rising.

MARIAN COLETTE: Did you guys laugh at him?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: We were[ too] afraid of Granny Kate to laugh at him, but we could have if we would have had a chance to.

MARIAN COLETTE: Did they do more singing?

KATE ELLIS: I went to a corn shucking, and they would shuck white corn. You

would find some with a red side on it and they would call that a stew

ball. You wouldn’t hardly ever find some of them, but if a boy found

one of them he would get to pick out a girl and kiss her.

MARIAN COLETTE: But there wasn’t anything like going to the show?

KATE ELLIS: Well Albert took me to see “Gone with the Wind,” this was before we

got married. My sister and her boyfriend went with us and that’s the

only four of us that went. That’s the only time I went anywhere of the night with a boy. I was not really alone, I usually had some of the family. If Albert was wanting to take us for a drive, why he would ask one of my brothers to go and daddy would let us go. My brother much didn’t want to go he would rather play ball.

MARIAN COLETTE: So, women would get together with other women?

KATE ELLIS: Yes.

MARIAN COLETTE: They didn’t play cards or anything?

KATE ELLIS: No, they sewed.

MARIAN COLETTE: A sewing bee life?

KATE ELLIS: Somebody would invite somebody else would tell somebody else to

bring their kids and come to my house and we'll sew. They cut dresses out.

MARIAN COLETTE: What did they [the] kids do while women were sewing?

KATE ELLIS: Played. One time one my mother took me to one of her sisters-in-law. I had a brother younger than me. She had children my age and one a little older. She had a son the age of my brother and they played in the branch. She baked a cake while they worked and

then they would. And sometimes they would make like chow chowder, or corn salad, stuff like that. My brother and that boy played in the

branch and she had a fire in the stove and the oven hot to do the cake

and she hadn't stirred that and put it in yet. So, her son brought in a crawdad and put it in the pan and stuck it in the oven. I mean it

was a scratching and she pulled that thing out and it was a big old red crawdad. She got it out and it wasn't dead, and she make [made] them put it back in the creek.

CARRIE SMITH: During the wintertime, people would set around the fireplace and

the parents would go get a big bunch of sweet potatoes and put it in the ashes. They were good too.

KATE ELLIS: Sometimes they would popcorn over that fire too.

CARRIE SMITH: Mommy had one of these here oven aids.

MARIAN COLETTE: What is that?

CARRIE SMITH: It’s [an] oven lid skillet.

KATE ELLIS: You[‘ve] got legs on them, you would pull out some fire coals and that

gets the skillet hot, but then on top after you put your biscuits on you put the lid on and it has a dimple in it after you get the lid on real good and tight you pull your hot coals and put it in the top of it and it browns the biscuits.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: I wound up with a gas stove.

CARRIE SMITH: When Lily May, was born I had a midwife, See I lived up in the

mountains. She come [came] and Lily May. was turned around. I couldn’t have her, and they had to take me to the hospital. They got me to the hospital, Bea had to turn that baby back around. Now I had one breached in tolito [total?] and it was dead for three weeks and I knew it, because It didn’t move. But John Jr. was born dead.

MARIAN COLETTE: People didn’t know what was really going on if they didn’t go to

the doctor?

CARRIE SMITH: See, I went to this doctor every week, but I just kept getting bigger he was 18 inches long when he was born, I mean they took a ruler and measured him.

MARIAN COLETTE: The one that was born dead?

CARRIE SMITH: The one that was born dead. See, I was getting big and I just couldn’t stay straight. When I took sick with him, but he was breached completely all the way around you know, all the blood comes last, well it come [came] first. See, the blood came first, then the baby then the water. I just run [ran] and jumped in the bed and it was just like a river in there.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: One of mommy’s brothers wife had a baby like that. She had a

midwife and every few minutes, that lady would get me by the hand and we would go to the table and pray. Then I would go back in there and I didn’t Know what to do, I just did what the woman wanted me to do, and that young was finally born.

MARIAN COLETTE: And it lived.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: And it lived.

CARRIE SMITH: Now, see mine would of [have] if it hadn’t been dead in me. It had been dead about weeks in me. I had to force my legs apart for them to do it. I was in a condition that I couldn’t be moved. I was losing so much blood and they had to be something done there at the house. You couldn’t/t get a doctor there. Ms. Calwell, she had delivered 48 babies. She was sitting there on the side of the bed, went into the kitchen. She said, "if you got any prayer, you better be saying them.” She said, "that girls [girl] isn’t going to have that baby.” I got ahold of the side of the bed and ahold of the sheet and I started to

scream till that baby come [came] and when it come [came], I tell you it [would have] liked to [have] killed me.

MARIAN COLETTE: Was there anything women could do if they didn’t want to have babies?

CARRIE SMITH: There was one thing of preventing pregnancy, it was three days before right on the day she started in the middle of the period or three days before.

KATE ELLIS: That was called the rhythm system. We talked to the doctor about it an[d] Albert, after I had my first one, he didn't want me to get pregnant again. We talked to the doctor about it, he told us actually how, what, and when, but it didn't work for me.

CARRIE SMITH: Well now, if a woman would of [have] thought they could of [have] used Vaseline?

MARIAN COLETTE: People did try to use something?

KATE ELLIS: Yes.

CARRIE SMITH: If a women [woman] would jump up right quick and raise her hands over her head, she could stop [a] pregnancy.

MARIAN COLETTE: Carrie, [do] you believe that?

CARRIE SMITH: Yes.

CARRIE SMITH: Well, when you burry a family, you don't want to bring any more into the world.

MARIAN COLETTE: How many did you have to die?

CARRIE SMITH: I had seven to die, that’s a crop of children.

KATE ELLIS: Anna May White had five to die.

CARRIE SMITH: See, I was pregnant with Ronnie and Donnie, and I was five months pregnant when I miscarried. Well, there was a cow that was needing to be took [taken] to the male, you know how they are. Well, the men folk was [were] getting ready to take her to the male. Well, she got a breath of the male and she run [ran] away. She throwed [threw] my husband against a tree and knocked him out cold as kraut and blood [was] pouring. Like a dummy, I ran out there and got [a]hold of him and [was] trying to pick him up. I guess I strained too much. I made it back to the house and I went around the hill to a house and there was [were] some people sitting on the porch, and they come back with me. They got a sheet, spread it on the bed, and she stayed with me all night. I was unconscious and they got Dr. Price—give [gave] me a shot and that [was] like[ly] to [have] of finished me up. They sent for Dr. Davis, and he said, "get her in the car," and he rushed me to the hospital in his car and when I come [came] to myself, the babies were laying there dead.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: My granddaughter has lost a little baby, they never told how or why she lost it.

MARIAN COLETTE: How far along was she?

..

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: She was four or five months.

MARIAN COLETTE: She didn’t lose [it] at home, did she?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Yeah. she was going back and forwards [forth] to the hospital and the doctor was trying to keep her from losing it and one morning, she said Mommy to get that thing that she was using—the[y] wouldn’t let her use the toilet and that fell in there, they took it and her and took them to the hospital and they wrapped it up and told them they could bury it anywhere they wanted to.

MARIAN COLETTE: Is this recent?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Yeah.

KATE ELLIS: Sometimes they say a miscarriage will make you sterile.

MARIAN COLETTE: Everybody is so different, what might be for one person might not be for another.

CARRIE SMITH: Yeah.

MARIAN COLETTE: Some of [the] people talked about when there were real[ly] hard times when they didn’t have money and stuff. Did yous [you] ever go through hard times like that?

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Not like I’ve seen on the television. The man would always make enough money to feed us we ain’t never went hungry.

KATE ELLIS: We dried bean[s], we had food.

KATE ELLIS: Now, when they had the Depression, I[‘d] seen in the mining camp, the mines would cut down.

MARIAN COLETTE: It was worse living in the camp than it was on a little farm?

KATE ELLIS: Yeah, we lived on a farm and if somebody needed something, daddy would tell them to come up there and we would give them roasting [corn] ears, beans.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: I could remember my grandmother farming. She would give people [a] sack fulls [full] of cabbage, beans, apples and stuff like that.

KATE ELLIS: See, young people would have a hard time started [starting] out, not like the other people who been established.

DOROTHY CAMPBELL: Granny Kate was a sister to Juice Meadors and him and his family would always come to her, and we killed hogs and beef and stuff like that, and they dried it out.

MARIAN COLETTE: So, the kids were well-fed?

KATE ELLIS: Yeah, we had cows that gave plenty of milk and chickens that laid eggs. We would go out at Kate’s, and I can remember Milford Meadors he’s [he was] a preacher back then. We were young and we weren’t Christians, but we didn't do a thing in the world but listen to the radio. They would cook chicken and dumplings and we would have us a midnight supper.

CARRIE SMITH: We lived in a mining camp, and they would come in there when they were organizing a union, a lot of people didn’t know they were having a union and the ones that didn’t want it had to go find another house.